By the time I reach the secret place beneath the twisted tendrils, I’ve worked myself up into a terrible state of anxiety about whether the climbing gear will still be there. When I find that it is, except for the coverall and respirator I took home the night I dislocated my shoulder, I weep with relief and the memory of Mack training me to climb the outside of the city. He wasn’t all bad. And I’m hardly blameless in all this mess.

  The tears for him soon spill for Kay. I have no idea where she is or what Sung-Soo really meant. But I wipe my face and pull out the harness and u-velcro crampons. I have to move now.

  There’s no way I can make this climb with only one arm in use, so I take off the sling. The woolen doll spills out and I realize then that my father’s book must have fallen out when I was knocked over by the blast. I feel the wrench of loss like a physical blow to the stomach, doubling over slightly at the thought of it being trampled and potentially lost to me forever. But I force myself to focus on the practical matters of prepping for the climb and soon enough moving my shoulder is a painful distraction. It’s much better than it was, but I resign myself to the fact that this will hurt and there’s nothing to be done about it. I tuck the doll into the waistband of my trousers and hope she’ll stay put.

  I listen for Sung-Soo as I re-coil the tangled ropes, but there’s no sign of him. Perhaps he’s waiting for dawn before setting out. I can still hear all sorts of yelling and chaos coming from the colony. I know a couple of the colonists had swords and knives displayed in their homes, but I doubt anyone has the skills to use them effectively. We’ve evolved our way of life as top predators, thinking technology would be there to defend against any threat. But we assumed we’d have a network to deliver weapon patterns to printers and notice given by the far-range sensors. We didn’t prepare for human cunning and our species’ capacity to plan and execute a surprise attack against us.

  Once the coiled ropes are slung into place and I’ve steeled myself against the inevitable pain, I move farther around to the back of the city, accept the climbing software’s offer of help and begin the ascent. The adrenaline helps and I use the breathing techniques I was taught at prenatal class to manage the complaints from my shoulder. I’ve forgotten the pain of childbirth, but not the techniques to cope with it.

  For the first twenty meters or so I’m only focused on the climb and making sure the rope is pulled up after me by using the remote opening command to release the grip from the hexes. I allow myself only the briefest pause to catch my breath, no more, as the sky is brightening in the north and I’ve got to get higher before the dawn breaks. The higher I go, the more tendrils and pods there are to hide behind. At least they can’t use the network to find me now.

  I reach the peak point of the climb as the sun comes up and I’m sweating and shaking as it breaks the horizon. The last time I was up here I was on my way to plant the fake seed and keep those lies alive for another year. All for nothing.

  I hunker down on top of a pod that’s partially covered by another tendril stretching upward to a larger pod above me. From here I can see down into the colony. The fires are still burning but haven’t spread, sending thick plumes of black smoke into the air. There are four in total: one where the main colony server is housed, one where the backup system is kept, one pouring from the main vent out of the Masher, and the building containing the big communal printers. I don’t recall four explosions, so they must have set fire to some with other means. They clearly knew what to target.

  They. I can see them now in the gray light. Seven of them are clustered around the range vehicle used for expeditions and to mine the minerals we needed in the first phase of the colony. The soft roof cover has been rolled back to make room for a huge pile of supplies and what look like a few portable printers, tied down for travel. Seated on the rear benches that run the length of the rear compartment are nine colonists, hands tied to the loops that the roof is normally strapped to. All of them have the luminescent splashes on their chests. One of them is Kay. She looks barely conscious.

  The pendants. Sung-Soo’s gifts were markers and that material he carved them from had been somehow rigged to turn to a dye. Perhaps that whistling sound I heard at the start of the chaos had something to do with it. All this time he’s been identifying people to steal, people with skills. He gave Kay her pendant only after he heard about her healing skills. I told him that. She’s there because I made him realize she was useful.

  No. I’m not going to feel guilty. She’s there because they’ve caught her, because they are committing a crime in which I am not complicit.

  I can’t see anyone else from the colony moving around. There are dozens of bodies. I can’t tell if they’re dead or just unconscious. Everyone else must be hiding, terrified. It doesn’t look like there’s been any serious resistance; none of Sung-Soo’s people are injured. I spot another one of them heading to the vehicle from the direction of my house, shaking her head at Sung-Soo, who comes out from the other side of the truck and walks over to meet her. There’s a discussion and five of them split off from guard duty to go with Sung-Soo in the direction he last saw me leave the colony. The proper hunt is beginning.

  I look back at the truck, at my colleagues and my former lover held prisoner, and I know I’m not going to save them. If this were a game, like the countless stupid things I’ve played over the years, I’d be heading down there to pick off the guards one by one and free them. Then we’d take back the colony and put an end to this terror. But I don’t have the skills or the weapons that my character would have. There aren’t handy weapon caches stored in secret places that I can raid to arm myself and my fellows. None of the games I’ve ever played have built in total failure from the start. I wouldn’t have the first idea of how to tackle one of the guards and take their weapon. There’s no engine to interpret my clumsy actions and translate them into flawless silent assassinations. There is no heroism in me without the supporting game narrative.

  I shuffle back until the sight of the truck disappears below the lip of the pod and I weep for Kay and the others, hating my incompetence. My skin is clammy and I can’t stop shivering.

  They’re coming for me now. What to do? Without the network, I can’t connect to Atlas to find some sort of tracking software to keep one step ahead of my hunters. There’s no way I can go off into the grasslands yet. From the look of the others in the truck, I’ve been picked to run their stolen printers and build things for them. They’re not going to give up their search easily.

  I could hide up here for a couple of days, three at a push, but then my need for water would drive me down there. Even though they look like they want to leave, I’m not sure if they will without me. They might leave the colony, fearful that someone will get themselves together enough to organize a retaliation, but Sung-Soo could easily wait in the grasslands and come back.

  And what would I find down in the colony? I can’t see how we’ll survive in the meantime. There are limited water supplies in the houses, raw materials we could extract from the kitchen printers to make food. We could cobble something together perhaps. But the damage he’s done to this place is so deep that I’m not sure we’ll ever recover the easy life we had. Perhaps that’s the point. Sung-Soo wanted to snatch that luxury away and force us to struggle like they have all their lives.

  The thought of scrabbling to survive among the same people who watched my home being ripped open makes me feel nauseous. I can’t trust any of them. Some of them will think it’s my fault. Mack and I are—were—associated with bringing Sung-Soo into the colony. They’ll think Sung-Soo’s attack was retaliation for what he found beneath my house. I’ll be the scapegoat.

  The alternative is to give myself up. Perhaps we could find a way to escape. Perhaps, seeing as we have skills they need, we’d be treated well. It seems, for a moment at least, to be the easiest option. The fear of the chase would be over. But I still don’t move. Even when I decide that’s the path of least resistance, I don’t stand up and call down to the captors. There’s too much of a gap between the reality and my scared little fantasy. Some part of me refuses to give myself up to any sort of slavery. If only that part of my mosaic was louder when I meekly obeyed Mack’s orders. Fuck. I hate myself.

  I lie flat on top of the pod, stuck. I can’t go down there, I can’t climb any higher and there’s nowhere else to go. Then I feel the pod shift its position by just a fraction, but enough to make me wonder what triggered it.

  There is another place to go.

  I’m moving before I’ve even had a chance to think how terrible an idea it is. There are no other options I’m willing to take and no other places I’m willing to go. I don’t want to hand my survival chances over to Sung-Soo and his people. But I am willing to give myself up to another judge. I’m ready to be tested. I’m going into God’s city and I’m not going to leave until I understand it or until it kills me.

  37

  THE COURTYARD IS empty and for the first time in over twenty years there are no greeters outside the entrance. Even if the colony hadn’t been attacked, there would be no one there. Now they all know that Suh isn’t coming back.

  I slide off the top of the tendril I cut through before and land on the old platform that Pasha stood on just a couple of days ago. I detach the rope, coil it and sling it over my shoulder. I’ll need it in there. After clambering over the rail, I step across the gap between the waiting platform and the top of the slope leading up to the entrance to the city. Less than twenty-six hours ago Marco stood here with the whole colony watching. Sung-Soo was just meters away, knowing it was all false and keeping his silence.

  I’m putting this off. I press my hand against the join like Marco did and the valve opens. I see the plant inside near the entrance, now just stalk and leaves, and the tunnel stretching ahead of me.

  This will be the death of me, surely? I’ll survive in the tunnel, but once I’m past the valve at the far end leading deeper into the city, I’ll be poisoned. A flash of Suh’s last moments and the blotches spreading across her skin returns along with the sound of her wheezing as her airway closed. The bubbling in her lungs . . . all of it plays out without any need of my chip to enhance the memory.

  But that was before we adapted to this planet. Her body was geared up for a sanitized memory of Earth’s environment. No new viruses or diseases introduced for all that time during the journey on Atlas. My body has been altered to thrive in this environment since then. I’m more likely to survive.

  It doesn’t take away the fear though. As a scientist, I know this is madness. But I also know this is an act of faith. I step inside and wait until the doors close behind me.

  I have no headlamp. No respirator, not even a pair of gloves. I pull my sleeve down until I can wrap it over my fist and reach out to the side until my knuckles brush the wall. With something to guide me now I take a few tentative steps forward in the darkness, doing everything I can to try to keep my breathing steady as my heart’s percussion threatens to overwhelm me.

  All I can think about is Suh’s death. After all these years of doing everything I could to avoid even a reminder of what happened, I find myself walking toward it. Is this actually a desire for suicide disguised as a desire to understand this place?

  “Oh, shut up!” I jump at the sound of my own voice and then laugh, the terror tipping over into mild hysteria.

  My hand is wet and the laughter chokes off. The skin on the back of my hand is tingling. I try to work out if that’s because of what’s soaked through my sleeve or if it’s the cold or just plain panic. In the darkness I can’t check for any discoloration and the sensation is spreading.

  I turn around to go back but misjudge it and walk into the opposite side of the tunnel. My forehead slaps against the wet slime coating the inside of the wall and I yelp at the direct contact. In moments my whole face is tingling, like I’ve been outside in snow and then plunged my face in a bowl of hot water. Stupidly I turn, looking for some crack of light to guide me out, but there’s nothing except darkness. I blink frantically, trying to work out if I really do have my eyes open as the tingling spreads up my arm and down my neck. It’s then that I know I don’t want to die. There is no romantic notion of following Suh on that last journey. There’s just fear and waiting for my windpipe to close and my lungs to fill with liquid.

  But neither of those things happens. Instead, a pale blue light fills the tunnel, seeming to glow from the walls rather than from a single source. I can see the tunnel stretching away from me to the valve that I entered and another valve much farther away. I can even see my footprints as darker depressions in the slick floor.

  I look at my wet hand and my stomach drops when I can’t see it. I can feel myself waving it about in front of me, I touch my face with it to reassure myself it’s still there, and I can feel it against my cheek. But all I can see is the tunnel, as if my body is still in darkness.

  “There has to be an explanation,” I whisper to myself. A hypothesis emerges from the roiling mess of my panic. Perhaps it’s still dark in here, but somehow I can now see the tunnel via a different spectrum. I rub my wet fingers together, thinking of the sensation contact first created that is subsiding now. Perhaps something in this substance has altered me, enabling me to see the interior of the tunnel.

  Cut off from the environment in our suits and helmets, we had no contact with this part of the city when we first stepped in. I’ve never allowed any of the gunk to come into contact with me after my illegal visits. But perhaps that was our first mistake. Perhaps, just like the pheromones released by that plant, the city releases something here in the entrance tunnel to prepare us for its depths. We kept ourselves blind.

  I feel normal now, my skin no longer tingles, and I can cope with not being able to see myself now that I can see where I’m going. I look at my footprints to get my bearings and walk away from the doors, deeper into God’s city.

  38

  THE TUNNEL IS longer than I appreciated and every step is filled with thoughts of Suh’s death. They’re no longer laced with the fear that I’ll die the same way. I’m finding that I can think about it calmly now, without the threat of being overwhelmed by pure emotion. Perhaps I’m still keeping it at bay. No, I don’t really think that. There’s a relief I’ve never felt before, now that the secret is out. I worry briefly about what will happen to her body now but only in the most abstract way. In here, it seems that all those things are much further away than they’ve ever been before.

  I want to find a way to that topmost room, the one in which Suh said God was already dead. I didn’t believe her then and I don’t now. I was willing to follow her so far, but not to that place without hope. She saw something on the other side of that veil that made her lose belief in everything. I want to face whatever she did and see what is left behind. I’ve lost so much in the last few hours I need to see what is left.

  I reach the valve and press my hand against it, trusting that whatever I’ll come into contact with won’t kill me. The valve opens and another stretch of tunnel lies beyond, this time curving upward. There’s a pungent scent that reminds me of burned toast mixed with the taste of aniseed and I realize I’m breathing in a different kind of chemical mix. I pause, waiting to see if there are any side effects, but all I feel is light-headed. That could be from the exertion and lack of food and water for a few hours. I step over the threshold and wait for the valve to close behind me.

  When it shuts, the color of the tunnel shifts to a deeper blue. A variation in the shading slowly becomes apparent, revealing what seems to be a pathway up the right-hand side of the tunnel. Is that the right way to interpret it? I move over to the right with a couple of steps until I’m aligned with it and tentatively put a foot at the start of the darker color.

  Nothing happens. I breathe out and take another step, then another. My feet sink into the surface as if there are steps below it, hidden beneath a spongy slime-covered material. I pause and prod the area to the left of the path. There are no depressions there and the incline is getting steep enough to make it impossible to climb without these hidden steps. I climb a little higher before I realize I didn’t see any difference when I was prodding the floor, as if my foot was invisible.

  I stop, jarred out of the excitement of finding a path by the thought that my understanding of what happened to me in the previous tunnel was wrong. I hold up my hand and press it against the wall next to me, feeling the slight sticky depression form in its surface. I can see the dent but not my hand. It’s like I’m not there.

  It makes me shudder. I’m certain I would have noticed that before. Has another chemical entered my brain and altered my perception further?

  I slip and fall to the bottom of the tunnel, my back hitting the valve door.

  “Focus,” I say out loud, half to chastise myself and half to see if I can still perceive my own voice. It’s a welcome sound.

  I stand up, my clothes now damp and clinging to my skin, clogged with the mucus. I try not to think about that and instead concentrate on the way ahead. The darker line I saw before has gone, and when I try to step where I did before there’s no depression to a step beneath.

  Doubting my memory, I stare at the tunnel until the darker line coalesces again. This time it’s stretching up the middle with a slight curve to the left. I don’t question it. I walk and feel the steps there as before.

  This is the beginning of being tested. I start to remember early immersion games from my childhood but pull myself back into focusing on the path. I mustn’t overthink it. I look. I follow. I climb.

  Toward the end of the tunnel I have to use my hands, still repulsed by the way my fingers sink into the stickiness, but it’s getting so steep I need to use the hidden steps like a ladder. A new valve comes into view above me and I go through. There is a tangle of possible ways onward, instead of the interior of another pod, as if several tendrils have partially merged with one another and formed an internal junction.